News stories from Saturday July 31, 1971
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin rode the lunar rover on the moon. The lunar rover's front wheel steering failed, but astronauts drove the vehicle for two hours with rear steering. The astronauts spent 6 ½ hours on the moon outside the spacecraft. [CBS]
- Steel industry negotiations continue; a strike is set for midnight. Progress is apparently being made, but negotiations are secret. United Steel Workers union members will be briefed tonight and will decide whether to go ahead with their strike. [CBS]
- Negotiations continue in the railroad strike. [CBS]
- The Senate will vote Monday on a bill to provide a $250 million loan to Lockheed Aircraft. [CBS]
- Rep. Shirley Chisholm is considering running for president. [CBS]
- Senator James Buckley said that President Nixon must reassure conservatives that he hasn't abandoned them. [CBS]
- President Nixon says he is going to China because we can't have world peace if 800 million people are isolated. Nixon spoke to farmers at the dedication of Rathbun Dam in Centerville, Iowa, and said that America must restore, develop, and maintain the countryside.
The President was greeted in a pep rally atmosphere at the Canton, Ohio, airport; Nixon renamed the presidential jet the "Spirit of '76" and said that the U.S. cannot allow other nations to overtake our number one position in the world. The President returns to Washington, DC tonight.
[CBS] - The Viet Cong promised to identify all American POWs as soon as a date is set for U.S. troop withdrawal. [CBS]
- Student pilot Yoshimi Ichikawa is charged with suspected negligence as a result of his plane's midair collision with a passenger jet over Japan yesterday. [CBS]
- A Pan Am 747 damaged its landing gear on a runway light on take-off. The gear collapsed when the plane tried to land at the San Francisco airport and the jet skidded to a stop; 26 passengers were injured. [CBS]
- The Baltimore Colts defeated the College All Stars 24-17 yesterday.
Ted Owens of Norfolk, Virginia, claims to be a representative of intelligence from another dimension, and he wants pro football to pay him not to influence the outcome of games through "psycho-kinetics". Owens says that psycho-kinetics is the power to influence matter with his mind; he told of preventing five teams from winning the Super Bowl last year. The Baltimore Colts offered Owens $25,000 not to use his power against them if football commissioner Pete Rozelle will approve the grant. Team owner Carroll Rosenbloom said that if Owens actually affects the outcomes of games, he wants him on the Colts' side.
Owens claims that he previously set his mind against the Colts, causing injuries to two Baltimore players; he also displayed discs which players could wear in order to suffer fewer injuries and win more games.
[CBS] - Walter Botts, who posed for Uncle Sam's "I Want You" poster 33 years ago, is having trouble with the Army. Botts was paid $25 for posing for the poster; he is now being denied an Army pension for being 15 days short of required active duty time. [CBS]